HELP - Chassis and bulkhead don't fit!

Thanks Martin

Jon uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Having spent 2 weeks prior to rushing back to do Malvern (if only) in Cornwall and Sussex I can catagorically say it's warmer here ;-) (North Staffordshire)

Bit far for me...

Others comments make some sense, butchers though the lot of them ;-) When I did my IIa I actually replaced the door pillars, footwells and gubbins while I was putting it all back together so never had these problems as I built mine to fit properly ;-)

Lee D

So you've built yours correctly and I'm expecting mine to bolt straight on. Both of us would therefore fail the LR entrance exam....

One more question - I take it that the rope goes around the pillars at the lowest practical point - i.e.between the chassis top and footwell bottom so I don't need to compress the bulkhead along the whole length of the pillers. I'll place some blocks against the pillars and then some layers of slippery plastic (Tescos bags) on top for the rope to slide on. I'll have one end of the bulkhead bolted on slightly loose and I'll see if there's some ratchets at work I can borrow as well. Does that sound like a plan? Thanks, Jon

Anything, to spread the load and ensure there's no unwanted slippage.

I'd be inclined to start with a length of webbing.

Whereabouts in Surrey?

Yeah, though looking at the rest of the vehicle build it should really have been plainly obvious it's normal ;-)

Lee D

Some of you guys are getting lost in the fog. You go on about Landrovers and all the modifications you can do to them, but when a problem comes along ( some of you ) fall over . If the 2 bolt holes are 1500 mm apart and there is a discrepancy of 10mm then I make that about 1.5% tolerance, thats pretty good for British engineering. People forget we used to rule the engineering world and now we dont . Please don't expect you Landrover to be built to Japanese tolerances . The question is what would they have done in the factory? Spreading the chassis is out for a start! Ratchet straps sound good , but I suspect they would have had 2 tapering pins going from about 1/4" up to the diameter of the bolts , these pins would have been about a foot long they would have loosely fitted the pins in the bulk head and then inserted the 1/4" ends in the chassis , then while 2 blokes held the bulkhead vertical 2 other blokes would have leathered f*ck out of the pins and bulkhead until the bulkhead slid up the pins and stretched to fit the chassis rails . This would have been carried out in the "Alignment bay" after all they would have been doing dozens abd dozens of these everyday. I've never worked at Landrover , but I have worked in British engineering long enough........

Al (R L Driver is having a rest)

Thats leathered f*ck as in clobbered it with big hammers sorry Al

the 3 or 4 ive done have been. The easiest approach is to weld the legs onto the bulkhead with it in place on the chassis. precision fit then!

As you seem to have worked out - you want to bend the legs to fit the chassis. It doesnt take much to move them a bit.

"Al Gorithm" wrote :-

I think you are "getting lost in the fog" as you put it. If you (or Landrover) used taper pins to align the holes then when removing them to fit the bolts the door pillars would just spring back again, nothing gained.

A bulkhead is quite flexible until it is bolted to the chassis and if one end is secured to the chassis outrigger you would probably get the other side in by just knee pressure on the pillar.

It's no wonder British engineering has gone to the dogs if they work to a piss poor 1.5% tolerance but in my experience it's a good job they don't and if you still work in that industry I would imagine you are exaggerating somewhat. :-)

Martin

It's considerably more likely, in the Series days, that if a component couldn't be fitted relatively easily they would simply scrap it and get another - loss of bonuses would prevent any time being wasted on it.

Richard

heh - ok, if you say so :)

A trip round the Montego line way back when was enlightening to say the least.

Didn't actually see anything like that when I went to Solihul around the same time - the section where they make/build/construct any-part-for-any-vehicle[1] was far more interesting.

Sounds to me as though your chassis has lightweight bulkhead outriggers fitted instead of civy ones Kevin

My point being that the landrover bulkhead is fabricated up of about 30 pieces all fitted to a jig and then all welded up ,I think its likely that the bulkhead would spring when removed from the Jig. 1.5 % of error is not too bad really. People who have never worked in a factory may well have whimsical ideas about "precision engineering". The reality would surprise many people In the 50's 60's and 70's we used worn out machine tools from before the war ( in my factory the oldest machine in daily use was 1929 ) which would wander out of tolerance all the time. I agree with Tasso above , you are deluding yourself guys, look what happened to the bike industry and now the car industry.

"they would simply scrap it and get another" ..... they were nearly all out of tolerance.

Rant Rant.

No I dont work in engineering any more, but its all changed now with modern NC machining , robot welders etc.

Al RL driver is having a rest

I never had the pleasure of visting the LR lines in Series days, but I did spend quite a lot of time on the Rover 75 line during pre-production. A component not fitting there during real production potentially stopped the line while the probelm was traced - any supplier getting it wrong was in for a very large bill.....

Richard

If only that were true...... ;-)

Richard

On or around Wed, 6 Sep 2006 10:50:49 +0100, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

Mind you, we're talking about a vehicle which, IIRC, the factory spec allows one side to be 1" higher ride height than the other...

Ford used to have a policy of fitting body panels using 1/4" bolts in 1/2" holes with penny washers, to allow for alignment, which is cheaper than getting the holes in the right places.

I've just gone out to measure and the gearbox is in the way so I can't get an 'easy' measure - however the rear tub is situated about 2" off the chassis (on blocks) and all the holes look as if they'll line up and the engine and gearbox have gone in without a hitch. As the bulkhead was described as a military spare I can only presume that it's never been 'primed' for fitting and the chassis is fine. My original thought of wrapping rope around the bulkhead and tensioning it hadn't taken into account the gearbox. My thought now is to leave the bulkhead attached on one side and lift the other side up using the hoist and squeezing the bulkhead a little using rope / ratchet and lowering it back down to check - repeating as necessary - any other suggestions / tips gratefully received! Jon - SWB SIII

Guess what? It took me 10mins with a poundshop 1" ratchet strap...... Thanks again! Jon SIII